The Universe Tends Toward Jane
by Regency
Summary: All Maura wants to do is hold on to her, just for a little while longer. Spoilers for the first season finale and speculation for the second season premiere. R/I implied.


Author: Regency

Title: The Universe Tends Toward Jane

Fandom: _Rizzoli & Isles_

Pairing: Rizzoli/Isles implied

Warnings: Angst, non-graphic images of violence

Rating: PG-13

Spoilers: the season one finale with speculation beyond.

Word count: ~535

Summary: All Maura wants to do is hold on to her, just for a little while longer.

Author's Notes: Written for ohliberty for Scifiland Giftgiving 2010. Constructive criticism is awesome. In the spirit of giving, I'll take some. If you're not up for it, just let me know what you think. *L'Eermitage – the International School of France

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters recognizable as being from _Rizzolli & Isles_. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

~!~

Maura didn't like to think of herself as picky, merely meticulous. She liked her life to have a certain order, a stridently controlled chaos if you will. She decorated her internal chaos with beautiful things; incredible heels, enviable clothes, subtle jewels at her neck and throat. It made her feel in control.

She'd been a part of the real world for a long time, beyond the high, sculpted hedges of L'Ermitage* since she was barely more than a girl. She knew that some people dressed their chaos in different clothes and faces. Some wore it strapped to their waist in the form of gunmetal; some kept it trapped in a ponytail away from their faces and out of the way. Some let it flow from their lips like breath, sarcasm painting every word they said. She'd never gotten along particularly well with people like that. Not until Jane Rizzoli, anyway.

Jane's chaos had built her, tall and slim and strong and only a little bitter under all that. Her chaos made her quick. Every motion seemed to send her in every direction before it finally moved her in one. She was entropy personified; protectiveness, insecurity and fear, love and self-sacrifice in clashing orbits around a heart less cynical than it pretended to be.

She was disorder, defying any and all laws of conservation, of preservation. No self-preservation.

_Take the shot!_

They wouldn't take it, not with her there and grappling with a man mad enough to try her.

_He's probably already dead._

The earrings Maura had been wearing earlier had disappeared. She couldn't remember when, but they were gone. Her chaos was spilling out and Jane was shaking apart without her gunmetal, her ponytail and sharp tongue. The things that should have kept her still weren't there to stop her from running into gun sights, into danger.

_No!_

The scream was long and harsh and Maura felt the bullet before it left the gun, ripping through her own resolve, her own clashing orbits, to leave her breathless.

…

The new silence burned as chaos fell. Maura hadn't ever stopped moving, didn't stop for the cops or the guns or Frost and his frozen horror or Korsak and his labored breath as he covered the distance. All she needed was to put order to chaos, to wrap it in bandages and armor until it could expand again. She held her hands hard to the hole the big bang had left behind, felt the heat being lost from Jane's skin to air. She sensed the others closing ranks around them, discarding the danger like so much cosmic castoff far, far away.

_The ambulance is on its way._

Maura knew that was good, good and necessary, but all she wanted to do was gather Jane up close and hold her in. Keep the part of her that was seeping between her fingers from trying to go so far.

_Hold on, Jane. Please, just hold on._

She realized now that all the glorious things in the world that shined would not be enough to hold her together if Jane crashed apart. She was only human, who was she to defy the laws of physics? She just wasn't that strong.


End file.
